First in a series of candidate profiles to be published Feb. 7-Feb. 16. Profiles are being published in order names will appear on the ballot.
Danielle Kincaid found one of the rare areas in practicing law that is preventive.
She had known she always wanted to be a lawyer, and explored the profession in different areas, from criminal to business, from insurance to bankruptcy.
“I even interned for the Washington, D.C., public defender before going to law school, and through law school had experiences with insurance work,” Kincaid said. “Eventually I knew I wanted to do estate planning. It’s proactive instead of reactive.”
Kincaid, 39, is running for a second term on the Springfield Board of Education. First elected in 2021, she is the board’s president this academic year.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology in 2005 and a master’s degree in business administration in 2007 from Missouri State University, and earned her law degree from Creighton University in 2011.
After earning her law degree, Kincaid started a practice in Omaha, but found herself returning to Springfield regularly. On the trips, she would visit her grandmother, who made an important inquiry.
“She was like, ‘What are you doing? Why don’t you just move to Springfield?’” Kincaid said. “She was correct.”
Kincaid and her law partner started Elder Law Group in 2019. Like most other lawyers, she has talked to a lot of people and heard some interesting stories. A unique quality of Kincaid’s work in estate planning, she says, is that she helps the people she meets prevent problems, not solve them.
“A lot of times when somebody connects with a lawyer, it’s usually because something has happened,” Kincaid said. “In estate planning, they are putting these documents in one place so that if they become incapacitated, or when they pass away, their loved ones don’t have any difficulty in speaking for them or transferring assets.”
An outdoors enthusiast who recently returned from a hiking trip in Nepal, where she hiked to the base camp of Mount Everest, Kincaid is now preparing for another adventure. Every other year, she participates in the MR340, a canoe race that stretches between Kansas City and St. Louis on the Missouri River.
Kincaid made it across the entire 340-mile route in 2018 and 2022, but not in 2020. She plans to race again in July.
Motivation for running
Kincaid said community service was important to her as she built her practice — working with Springfield community groups eventually led to the board of education, she said. Kincaid first got interested from her time spent on the Foundation for SPS Board of Directors.
A part of her belief of building a business is being a good, active community member, she said. Because she does not have kids of her own, she said, she can help prepare future generations through service on the board.
“During one of our board retreats … all board members sat down and listed out all their nonprofit involvement and things like that, and I kept seeing a correlation between children and education,” Kincaid said. “The foundation is amazing, but I knew I could make a bigger impact running for school board.”
She is also motivated by what could have been — while still in school, she also considered a career teaching.
“It’s a good thing I am not a teacher, because I tell people now, walking into a classroom full of students terrifies me way more than walking into a room full of adults,” Kincaid said. “What teachers do is magic.”
Strongest qualification
Kincaid says the last three years have given her a keen understanding of what the post requires. Learning about everything behind the education field has been, “like drinking from a fire hose.”
While Kincaid said her experience on the board has given her a strong understanding of what challenges Springfield Public Schools faces, and prepares her to make a bigger impact than she did in her first term, she points to her legal expertise as her strongest qualification. She also points to the importance of longevity and experience, noting that board member Shurita Thomas-Tate, first elected in 2020, is the longest-tenured member on the Springfield Board of Education.
“There are only seven of us,” Kincaid said. “I would never want there to be seven attorneys on the board, or seven CPAs,” Kincaid said. “We each bring something unique, and I bring that legal background. There are no other attorneys running, and if I don’t win my re-election, there are no attorneys on the board.”
Reporter’s note, Feb. 7: This report has been edited to correct a detail about the MR340.
Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series in the Springfield Daily Citizen’s coverage of the April 2024 election for the Springfield Public Schools Board of Education.
